


Painted Roses

by gaialux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Wicca
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 00:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14532732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: The Black Grimoire. And fate.





	Painted Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deadlybride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/gifts).



> Spoilers up to s13e12.

The Black Grimoire has many interesting spells.  
  
Sam sits and pools over it some nights, while Dean is sleeping, mouthing words he picked up from Rowena. She gives him sympathetic smiles when they meet up, where she points out the images and their corresponding words.  
  
“A lot of it is in the visuals,” she says. “And the ingredients.”  
  
He doesn’t let Dean know about any of this. And when Sam looks in the mirror he sees - for the shortest, splitest second - a flash of black over his eyes.  _This isn’t the same_  he tells himself, but Sam can’t be too sure.  
  
*  
  
Flowers, much to Sam’s surprise, spring up often in the Grimoire. Gritty, faded sketches of carnations and ivy and honeysuckle and lilac. They’re often wedged between pentagrams or sigils and Sam wonders if they were added later on, an afterthought.  
  
“No,” Rowena says quite clearly when Sam asks her. “No witch would dare tarnish this book.”  
  
Sam doesn’t remind her about the torn out page.  
  
*  
  
Rowena tries to steal the book a few times. Painted nails reaching out to trail along a sentence and, while Sam studies the words, she attempts to snatch it up. He always catches her.  
“Tricky, Sam,” she says with a smile. No hard feelings. They go back to learning.  
  
*  
  
Roses show up the most.  
  
All different colours and numbers of petals. Rowena says that’s important -- they all have different meanings. Hundreds or maybe thousands.  
  
“I never cared too much for herbs or flowers,” she says. “I don’t know why you do.”  
  
Neither does Sam.  
  
*  
  
Bindweed is for humility. Roses are for love. Phlox is for soulmates. Amaranth is for immortality.  
  
There is a spell in the Grimoire that includes all four. It’s one Rowena points out for him on her own accord, not one he finds and shoves in her face and asks countless questions about that make her eyes roll.  
  
“I always wondered,” she says, looking into Sam’s soul, “If this book could predict the future.”  
  
Sam’s not sure what she means by that, only that her eyes have a glint and the flowers on the page seem to  _glow_. The rose is a dark, deep, blood red with twelve petals; two layers of six.  
  
“Yes,” Rowena adds in suddenly. “I think it can.”  
  
*  
  
“You saved the world,” Rowena says.  
  
“You know about that?”  
  
“Aye,” Rowena says. “The entire universe knows.”  
  
Pause. Glint in her eye.  
  
“We also know about your soulmate. There’s that spell, if you need it.”  
  
*  
  
Sam never needed a spell.  
  
Sure, he and Dean used them to summon demons and angels and to fight off the monsters that went bump in the night. But never for this and, deep down, Sam thinks he always knew.  
  
“Why are you reading the Grimoire, Sam?” Dean asks when Sam returns that night. He has it out in the open in the library, hardly reading, maybe looking at the sketches. “Since when can you understand ancient Druidic?”  
  
He doesn’t seem mad -- not like Sam initially feared. Curious, maybe, like he truly thinks Sam  _might_  be able to understand the language.  
  
Sam closes the book. He stands. There are hundreds -- maybe  _thousands_  -- of spells in that book, and Sam could never explore even the basics of half. If they need the book? So be it. He stands, crosses the room to where his brother looks on with eyebrows raised and one side of his lip quirked. Waiting for that answer.  
  
Like Dean’s told Sam before, not all answers are in his nerdy research books.  
  
He leans down and catches Dean’s mouth. Warm. Still for a second before moving against Sam’s own lips. A hand reaching up to twist in his hair.  
_Humility, love, soulmates, immortality _.__  
  
This spell was made about them.


End file.
